I'm not gonna post Jay Ambrose's whole column from my paper today but this right here is a loving gem:

quote:

None of that produces jobs, and neither will imperiling the economy with too much federal debt. Although Obama now says he will go along with genuine austerity goals if he can get recession-reviving tax hikes, he has lately been pushing for an unaffordable high-speed rail system. It would come on top of such other inanities as an original budget this year that hiked the debt over the next decade by $10 trillion, enough money to reach to the moon and back and then halfway up again if stacked as $1 bills.

Do they make debt ceilings that high?

Wow! Now how many Mars Bars could you buy with $10 trillion and would they reach Mars?! My opinion of the debt ceiling hinges on this!

Boondock Saint posted:

So if I'm reading this right, according to Friedman, we're all hosed unless we either work in social media or are willing to reconsider our jobs/roles every three months.

I don't even...

quote:

Look at the news these days from the most dynamic sector of the U.S. economy — Silicon Valley. Facebook is now valued near $100 billion, Twitter at $8 billion, Groupon at $30 billion, Zynga at $20 billion and LinkedIn at $8 billion. These are the fastest-growing Internet/social networking companies in the world, and here’s what’s scary: You could easily fit all their employees together into the 20,000 seats in Madison Square Garden, and still have room for grandma

And this is a good thing according to Friedman. It's surely not another inflated bubble that will have to be bailed out, nooooooo.

Junior G-man posted:

And this is a good thing according to Friedman. It's surely not another inflated bubble that will have to be bailed out, nooooooo.

Don't forget that those valuations are based on some super-secret formula for internet revenue. It's almost as if the formula is basically nothing but hype, with Facebook and Twitter having little in the way of monetizing their popularity....

Remember how "valuable" youtube was perceived to be when Google bought it?

Bruce Leroy posted:

Don't forget that those valuations are based on some super-secret formula for internet revenue. It's almost as if the formula is basically nothing but hype, with Facebook and Twitter having little in the way of monetizing their popularity....

Remember how "valuable" youtube was perceived to be when Google bought it?

If I remember right, Facebook wasn't even cashflow positive until 2009(by which time its value was like $40 billion, despite never having turned a net profit). On the other hand, its net revenue is like $2 billion a year now. But Facebook isn't a publicly traded company, so its valuation isn't hugely important.

tehllama posted:

If I remember right, Facebook wasn't even cashflow positive until 2009(by which time its value was like $40 billion, despite never having turned a net profit). On the other hand, its net revenue is like $2 billion a year now. But Facebook isn't a publicly traded company, so its valuation isn't hugely important.

Whenever economists, business journalists, tech journalists, etc. talk about social media companies like Twitter and Facebook as if they are some kinds of economic giants worth ungodly amounts of money, all I can think of is that South Park episode where they have various internet meme "sensations" like Tay Zonday and the Star Wars kid trying to cash in on their "internet dollars."

fishmech posted:

Tay Zonday got like a million or so all told from that one video and stuff that developed form it, as well as a decent job. Just saying dude.

Isn't that because he's one of the few internet meme "stars" who actually has some talent?

The Star Wars Kid, Numa Numa guy, Tron guy, Chris Crocker, and the rest of them were only popular because they were goofy and people were laughing AT them. There's not much money to make or a career to be had for lip-syncing to a song (excluding Britney Spears) or pretending to be Darth Maul.

Bruce Leroy posted:

Isn't that because he's one of the few internet meme "stars" who actually has some talent?

The Star Wars Kid, Numa Numa guy, Tron guy, Chris Crocker, and the rest of them were only popular because they were goofy and people were laughing AT them. There's not much money to make or a career to be had for lip-syncing to a song (excluding Britney Spears) or pretending to be Darth Maul.

Yes, and Twitter and Facebook (and LinkedIn for that matter) are far more like Tay than star wars kid et al.

Bruce Leroy posted:

Isn't that because he's one of the few internet meme "stars" who actually has some talent?

The Star Wars Kid, Numa Numa guy, Tron guy, Chris Crocker, and the rest of them were only popular because they were goofy and people were laughing AT them. There's not much money to make or a career to be had for lip-syncing to a song (excluding Britney Spears) or pretending to be Darth Maul.

It was so painful watching Tron Guy audition on America's Got Talent the other week.

Bruce Leroy posted:

I've read one of his books. The key to understanding Cal Thomas is getting that "Leave It To Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" are what American was actually like in the '50s, and then the hippies and druggies and coloreds came and destroyed Western civilization.

Halloween Jack posted:

I've read one of his books. The key to understanding Cal Thomas is getting that "Leave It To Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" are what American was actually like in the '50s, and then the hippies and druggies and coloreds came and destroyed Western civilization.

Didn't Cal come out of the closet a few years back or something? Searching for "Cal Thomas Gay" doesn't really return the information that I want.

End the populist machination of democracy.
End the repression of the superior betters of society from criticism by worthless dregs via the tyrannous bullhorn known as the 'vote'.
Only the meritorious can rule!

This boot tastes soooooo good.

angrytech posted:

Didn't Cal come out of the closet a few years back or something? Searching for "Cal Thomas Gay" doesn't really return the information that I want.

Considering he wrote a bunch of anti-gay poo poo right when Obama was inaugurated, I'd say that all signs point to no on this one.

Halloween Jack posted:

I've read one of his books. The key to understanding Cal Thomas is getting that "Leave It To Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" are what American was actually like in the '50s, and then the hippies and druggies and coloreds came and destroyed Western civilization.

A lot of older conservatives who grew up during the 50's or were young adults then have that warped, nostalgic, revisionist history.

I wonder what they would do/say if you showed them all the evidence about how middle class white families were rampantly abusing amphetamines like benzedrine inhalers during the 1940s and 1950s. If "Leave it to Beaver" was realistic to the 1950s, Mrs. Cleaver would have been high on black beauties all day.

Bruce Leroy posted:

I wonder what they would do/say if you showed them all the evidence about how middle class white families were rampantly abusing amphetamines like benzedrine inhalers during the 1940s and 1950s.

This is completely new and interesting information to me and if you've got a link I'd appreciate it. Some basic googling is giving me enough that it seems pretty credible, but it's just basic 'hey this is when we saw reports of abuse starting to happen' stuff.

Bruce Leroy posted:

A lot of older conservatives who grew up during the 50's or were young adults then have that warped, nostalgic, revisionist history.

I wonder what they would do/say if you showed them all the evidence about how middle class white families were rampantly abusing amphetamines like benzedrine inhalers during the 1940s and 1950s. If "Leave it to Beaver" was realistic to the 1950s, Mrs. Cleaver would have been high on black beauties all day.

Not to mention sexual mores that were not yet changed due to AIDS, a society that also had families separate for much of their existence due to the Korean war as well. The whole society was very different then what they claim it to be. Leo Strauss, the arch neo-conservative, once despaired at the way society was at the time because people were too promiscuous, too happy and too stable.

eviltastic posted:

This is completely new and interesting information to me and if you've got a link I'd appreciate it. Some basic googling is giving me enough that it seems pretty credible, but it's just basic 'hey this is when we saw reports of abuse starting to happen' stuff.

There was this really great mini-series on the History Channel a few years ago about illegal drugs that devoted each episode to a different drug.

The amphetamine episode details how various amphetamines became hugely popular during World War II, especially among the Nazis, as they used the drugs to keep their soldiers energized and awake to allow for the Blitzkrieg.

Amphetamines were very popular among civilians after the war in the US, with very easy access as they weren't a controlled substance like marijuana. People used to take these benzedrine inhalers, that were originally used as a powerful decongestant, and break them open to get at the concentrated amphetamines inside. They'd dissolve the drugs from the cotton into a liquid and drink it to get a single huge dose of amphetamines at once.

There were also various pills prescribed by doctors for virtually any illness or affliction, kind of like how doctors in California will give you a medicinal marijuana card for pretty much any medical complaint.

The most interesting part of the show (to me at least) was how the prohibition of certain drugs was directly linked to racism. The prohibition of opiates was directly due to anti-Chinese sentiments among Whites that began during the Yellow Peril. Whites (especially white women) began going to segregated Chinese areas of cities on the West Coast to obtain opiates, which shocked White society, moreso to due with Whites associating with Chinese than actual drug use, as evident by anti-miscegenation laws barring marriage between Whites and Chinese. The first bans on opiate possession and use actually only applied to the Chinese, Whites could still freely possess and use opiates.

Cocaine prohibition is linked to racism against Blacks, as cocaine was popular among Black laborers in the South, especially those that worked on docks and shipyards. Urban legends began to spread among southern Whites of cocaine-crazed Black laborers that were going to surprise sex White women and kill White men, motivating Whites to push for prohibition of cocaine.

Cannabis prohibition is directly a result of anti-Mexican racism in the Southwest. There was a very strong racist sentiment against Mexican immigrants among Whites in the Southwest, similar to that found today, e.g. taking the jobs of White Americans, causing crime, spreading disease, and other fallacious scapegoating. It was common for Mexican laborers to smoke cannabis to relax from their back-breaking jobs, but cannabis back then was extremely weak compared to today's strains, so it really wasn't all that intoxicating or "dangerous." So, the racist Whites sought to go after this particularly distinctive habit of certain Mexican immigrants, which is apparent from the propagandist change in nomenclature from "cannabis" to the Spanish "marijuana," the latter word being extremely uncommon among Whites prior to those anti-cannabis efforts.

Here is pretty much the worst thing I've read all week from Star Parker.

Star Parker posted:

A Chicago Sun Times article, headlined "The disappearing black middle class," reports on the disproportionate impact of these hard economic times on blacks.

According to the data, taken from the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, median net worth of white households fell from $134,280 in 2004 to $97,860 in 2009, while over the same period median black household net worth went from $13,450 to $2,170.

The national unemployment rate stands at 9.2 percent, while black unemployment is over 16 percent.

There's more, but you get the picture. The nation has been hit hard, but blacks much harder.

Which raises a point of interest.

Approval rates for President Obama among whites have dropped from 56% in early 2009 after he became president to 39% now -- a drop of 17 points. But over this same period, Obama's approval rating among blacks has dropped just 8 points -- 93% to 85%.

Many whites who initially had supported our president are now crediting him for our current misery. But blacks, despite suffering far more, are far less inclined to hang it on Obama.

The message that massive government spending and borrowing does not grow the economy has not reached blacks. Rather, like our president, they seem to believe that the problem is we just haven't yet dug the fiscal hole deep enough.

Is this a racial thing? Whites will jump off the ship run by a black captain in a minute while blacks will ride it out until it hits the iceberg?

No, I don't think so. I think it's both a liberal information thing and a moral thing.

The liberal information thing is that blacks overwhelmingly get their information from liberal sources.

Blacks watch CNN and MSNBC, not Fox. They listen to urban black radio.

They are not going to hear from these sources that if you look all over the world, nations with the most prosperous economies are the ones with the most limited governments. Liberal media refuses to get and pass the word that socialism has failed.

The major organizations that supposedly represent black interests are all on the left, generously funded by big left-wing white foundations and by our nation's corporations. The former do it because they are liberals and the latter do it to show that they are not racist.

And, like the Economic Policy Institute, that produced the data reported in the Sun Times article, they are supported by unions.

But I think more corrosive is the moral thing.

Almost a half century since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, too many blacks still don't want to be free and accept the responsibilities that go with it. Too many blacks still believe that the condition of their lives is caused by what someone else does or has.

It is sad that this is true despite the fact that blacks go to church more often, pray more often, and say religion plays a central part in their life more than any other ethnic group in the nation.

Why does a people so inclined to turn to God so readily violate the Tenth Commandment's prohibition on covetousness and measure themselves in terms of what others have? And then use this sin to justify violating the Eighth Commandment and give government license to steal what others have in order to redistribute?

Perhaps most fundamentally, how can a church-going people buy into the materialism of socialism?

There is a solution to the general travails of our nation and the particular travails of our black brothers and sisters.

It is called every man and woman taking personal responsibility for their lives, turning to government for protection of life and property -- not redemption, and living as free people according to traditional biblical mores.

I'll repeat the important bit if anyone missed it amongst the bolding:

Star Parker posted:

Almost a half century since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, too many blacks still don't want to be free and accept the responsibilities that go with it. Too many blacks still believe that the condition of their lives is caused by what someone else does or has.

What so aggravating is that all the higher unemployment, lower net worth, lower pay, etc. for Black Americans is basically because conservatives fight anti-poverty measures and affirmative action policies tooth and nail. She's basically being an apologist for the group causing these things that she's laying at the feet of liberals.

Harold Meyerson is just about the only socialist in punditry land who calls himself a socialist, and for that he deserves a tip of the hat, but not for the Fairlie-like bigotry he exhibits toward the grassroots folks he supposedly adores.

Scout around on the Internet to see what people have been saying about the debt-ceiling fracas, and maybe you will bump into a column this editor of The American Prospect wrote for the Washington Post. He tells us that the House Republicans, in their opposition to new taxes, are at war with government and that market capitalism is malfunctioning. He is pretty put out that President Obama actually indicated he would consider entitlement cuts.

Sorry, but wrong, wrong and oh, please shut up, would you?

The House Republicans are at war, not with government, but with government abuses, including an irresponsibly accumulated bipartisan federal debt that could spell ruination. That’s not just the Tea Party talking, but top thinkers at institutions like Harvard.

One of the things abused is market capitalism. As a new book called “Reckless Endangerment” shows, it was government along with Wall Street that caused the financial crisis. What’s now thwarting business expansion as much as anything is fear of the debt, inflation, bureaucratic battering and legislative overkill.

Concerning entitlements – mainly Medicare and Social Security – the amount we owe on them beyond revenue projections is $61.6 trillion, and you couldn’t pay that off if you confiscated all the income and wealth of every rich person out there. Try to borrow our way out of it, and you’d have to give China the United States as collateral.

But those Meyerson goofs, plus a misunderstanding of the mutual advantages of trade and the rising of compensation before the recession, are Mickey Mouse stuff compared to his reach for deep insight into the conservative psyche. Here is his King Kong paragraph:

“Republicans, to be sure, have long waged a war on government, but only now has it become an apocalyptic and total war. At its root, I suspect, is the fear and loathing that rank-and-file right-wingers feel toward what their government, and their nation, is inexorably becoming: multiracial, multicultural, cosmopolitan and now headed by a president who personifies those qualities. That America is also downwardly mobile is a challenge for us all, but for the right, the anxiety our economy understandably evokes is augmented by the politics of racial resentment and the fury that the country is no longer only theirs. That’s not a country whose government they want to pay for – and if the apocalypse befalls us, they seem to have concluded, so much the better.”

That’s typical leftist babble, and the reason I quote Meyerson is not that I have any particular quarrel with him, but that he so aptly illustrates the pugnacious prejudices of hoity-toity left-wingers who think they have an obligation to control the hoi polloi beneath them, much like some slave owners thinking they were the slaves’ best friend. Though history has proven socialism inhumanely wrongheaded, you are some kind of a moral thug if you do not worship at least some semblance of that tattered god. Fairlie, a British journalist now dead, thought Republicans who nominated Ronald Reagan for president indistinguishable from Nazis.

By the way, we have not been downwardly mobile, either. Check the latest Pew survey on that question, and then, if still in a studious mood, pick up a copy of Arthur C. Brooks’ book, “Who Really Cares?” Measured by giving time and money to charity, it is those rank-and-file right-wingers who care most for their multiracial, multicultural brethren. They give a lot more than richer liberals relying on well intended but counterproductive, coercive measures paving the way to waste, more taxes and defenseless debt. Get in the way and feel not their generosity, but their sting.

Saint Sputnik posted:

Jay Ambrose posted:

Concerning entitlements – mainly Medicare and Social Security – the amount we owe on them beyond revenue projections is $61.6 trillion...

Where the hell does he get that figure from?

My understanding of social security is that it pays for itself and regularly runs surpluses, the only problem being with the program is that the trust fund gets raided by politicians to pay for other programs, just like when they raid teachers' pension funds.

And aren't a significant portion of the unfunded liabilities for Medicare due to the Bush Administration expanding prescription drug coverage but not setting up any way to pay for it, incurring trillions in liabilities?

Jay Ambrose posted:

and you couldn’t pay that off if you confiscated all the income and wealth of every rich person out there. Try to borrow our way out of it, and you’d have to give China the United States as collateral.

Anyone who refers to taxation as "confiscation" is a loving rear end in a top hat.

Jay Ambrose posted:

The House Republicans are at war, not with government, but with government abuses, including an irresponsibly accumulated bipartisan federal debt that could spell ruination. That’s not just the Tea Party talking, but top thinkers at institutions like Harvard.

It's deceptive and intellectually dishonest as hell for him to say that the debts are "bipartisan," which is his way of pawning off responsibility onto Democrats, as it acts as a dogwhistle to conservatives that says, "our deficits and debts are due to those dirty, tax-and-spend liberals."

The vast majority of our debt was accumulated by Republican presidential administrations and due to Republican congressional policies of cutting taxes while increasing spending on their pet projects (wars, Medicare expansions to pander to elderly voters, military boondoggles and spending like Star Wars, etc.)

Republicans are just the biggest hypocrites, especially those that were in Congress during the Bush Administration and suddenly became deficit hawks when Obama got elected. Seriously, Paul Ryan is an rear end in a top hat.

Deroy Murdock is another black conservative, just to continue the theme. Here's today's, where he literally equivocates abortion to incandescent bulbs and scammy poker sites.

quote:

Almost unanimously, Washington Democrats call themselves “pro-choice.” “I support a woman’s right to choose!” they thunder. “Choice,” of course, means abortion, and that is where the Democrats’ passion for choice starts and stops.

Elsewhere, Democrats sabotage a woman’s right to choose. Instead, they demand to make that choice for her, as they do for men.

I support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to use a traditional Thomas Alva Edison incandescent bulb. Democrats disagree.

The House of Representatives voted July 12 on a measure to repeal federal regulations that effectively criminalize sales of Edison’s bulb. According to Freedom Action’s Myron Ebell, violators face a federal penalty of $200 per offending bulb sold.

This law deliberately raises the bar higher than Edison’s bulb can leap. Regulations that wittingly exceed a product’s defining features prohibit the product itself. Why should Washington take away donuts, for instance, when it could criminalize fried-dough pastries that encircle holes?

I support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to use Avastin. Obama’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee disagrees. On June 30, ODAC rescinded its approval of this treatment for late-stage breast cancer. ODAC decided that Avastin’s side effects were not worth its five-month average life extension, even though it lengthens the lives of “super responders” by upwards of two to three years. Perhaps ODAC forgot that a key side effect of metastatic breast cancer is death – as 40,000 women discover annually.

But that hardly matters to the pharmacrats who snatched this choice from some 17,500 American women on Avastin. Ironically, those Obama Administration members likely support a woman’s right to control her body – but only regarding abortion.

I support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to buy health insurance under ObamaCare. Congressional Democrats disagree. They voted in near lockstep last year to compel women (and men) to participate in ObamaCare. Without exception, Republicans opposed ObamaCare and its individual mandate.

I support a woman’s right to choose to send her child to an alternative school that accepts educational vouchers. Unfortunately, Washington Democrats disagree. A federal initiative gave roughly 3,000 students vouchers worth up to $7,500 to escape Washington’s calamitous government schools. Despite promising results, teachers unions detested this program.

I support a woman’s right to choose Internet gambling as a pastime. Unfortunately, Obama’s Justice Department disagrees. On April 15, it hijacked the domain names of Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, three foreign-based poker websites. Justice eventually let Poker Stars and Full Tilt serve foreign gamblers, provided that they discriminate against Americans. Thankfully, Antigua-based Absolute Poker is fighting Justice’s authoritarianism before the World Trade Organization.

If a woman chooses to kill the young American in her womb, nearly every Democrat in Washington, D.C. will fight for her like Army Rangers on Normandy Beach. But if a woman desires almost any other choice, Democrats impersonate the Great Wall of China.

*sigh* Do they not even believe in their free market? The 'new' light-bulbs are cheaper over the long-run thanks to their low energy costs, but have a higher cost in production. The market had no incentive to make them cheaper while the old, cheaper light bulbs were available because your company would lose money in the years it took to do so. If you truly believe in the free market, then you should see companies innovating and making the new light-bulbs just as cheap as the old ones, with more energy savings down the line

"Freedom of choice abortion, huh? What about a woman's right to lose all her money to a foreign company charged with fraud and money laundering? Ha! those liberals are such hypocrites."

e: literally "I don't support a woman's right to choose not to have a baby, but I do support a woman's right to bankrupt herself, kill herself with pharmaceuticals, get sick while unable to afford health insurance, and use environmentally harmful outdated technology. Aren't I a standup guy?"

Saint Sputnik fucked around with this message at Jul 21, 2011 around 20:54

Saint Sputnik posted:

Deroy Murdock is another black conservative, just to continue the theme. Here's today's, where he literally equivocates abortion to incandescent bulbs and scammy poker sites.

That one makes my brain hurt.

"Women should be able to choose Avastin, even though doctors and researchers have determined that, outside of 'super responders,' the side effects off-set any potential benefits, but women should also be able to choose NOT to have healthcare insurance/coverage under "Obamacare" even though they wouldn't be able to afford Avastin without it and they wouldn't be eligible for insurance without "Obamacare banning discriminating against people for preexisting conditions."

Slaan posted:

*sigh* Do they not even believe in their free market? The 'new' light-bulbs are cheaper over the long-run thanks to their low energy costs, but have a higher cost in production. The market had no incentive to make them cheaper while the old, cheaper light bulbs were available because your company would lose money in the years it took to do so. If you truly believe in the free market, then you should see companies innovating and making the new light-bulbs just as cheap as the old ones, with more energy savings down the line

But the law doesn't even really ban incandescent bulbs, it's just that the new standards require greater efficiency than current incandescent bulbs have. If a company were to develop a new incandescent bulb with greater efficiency, it would be legal to sell them, which is why Deroy Murdock is a moron for acting like the government is "Orwellian" for instituting new energy standards.

I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks new automobile efficiency standards (i.e. miles per gallon) are "Orwellian" too.

The entire editorial is just Murdock being a corporatist. He's against these regulations because they limit how businesses he likes (e.g. pharmaceutical companies, charter schools, online gambling sites, etc.) can exploit consumers.

According to Cal Thomas today, those Norwegian kids would have lived if only they were packing heat. Didn't a bunch of assholes in the GBS thread on it make the same argument?

quote:

Norway forbids civilians from carrying concealed weapons, or owning an automatic weapon, unless they are gun collectors. As in America, gun laws do not deter criminals who are determined to cause harm with a weapon. What would have deterred Breivik would have been a gun in the hands of a competent person capable of stopping his mass-murdering spree.

If Norway can be a site for terror, is there a safe place on Earth? The answer is no. There are no “safe” places; no one can be 100 percent safe. Does that mean everyone should be armed? Not necessarily. What it means is that for some countries, some people and some places, a way to make the environment as safe as humanly possible is to have properly armed and trained people who can respond to such events.

Would Anders Behring Breivik have thought twice about his killing spree if he had known in advance that someone would shoot back? That is impossible to know. But if someone on Utoeya Island had returned fire, there’s a possibility that far fewer would have been killed. This approach may not be pleasant for some to contemplate, but the alternative is more personal and national mourning, as is now being experienced in Norway.

I had to stop myself from putting it up online under the headline "Hello Mother, Hello Father, Here I am at Camp Utoeya." His idiot idea doesn't deserve a serious headline but I couldn't go that far for a joke.

Saint Sputnik posted:

According to Cal Thomas today, those Norwegian kids would have lived if only they were packing heat. Didn't a bunch of assholes in the GBS thread on it make the same argument?

I had to stop myself from putting it up online under the headline "Hello Mother, Hello Father, Here I am at Camp Utoeya." His idiot idea doesn't deserve a serious headline but I couldn't go that far for a joke.

What really bothers me about conservative assholes like Cal Thomas is that they are intentionally ignoring the fact that Norway has very low crime rates and small prison populations compared to the US. These positive results are very likely due to all the social welfare programs that prevent crime in the first place and far more humane prison policies that reduce recidivism, but such policies are anathema to conservative ideologues like Thomas.

So, yeah, this incredibly loving awful thing happened, but Norway is otherwise a very safe and progressive country with far lower rates of poverty than the US. Breivik's terrorism was the worst violence in Norway since about World War II. The US has had numerous incidents of domestic terrorism in the last half-century, so I think the US should be taking a page from Norway, not the other way around.

Peanut President posted:

Several local small town post offices are probably gonna get closed, this was in the comments:

If Postal Service have gun...

Someone should reply and ask why this dude hates America and the Constitution, which clearly specifies that the post office shall be run by the govenment. Does he think he's smarter than the Founding Fathers or what?